Published 4:00 am, Saturday, March 14, 1998

A federal jury yesterday convicted six alleged members of a Northern California organized crime ring of smuggling 280 illegal immigrants from China into the United States at Moss Landing and Half Moon Bay.

Among those convicted was John That Luong, a 27-year-old Elk Grove (Sacramento County) man who has been identified by law enforcement agents as the mastermind of a sophisticated nationwide criminal syndicate that also engaged in robbery, murder and drug dealing.

After yesterday's verdicts, Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Gruel, who prosecuted the case, said the convictions strike a major blow against international Asian organized crime operations because many illegal immigrants smuggled into this country are forced to work as virtual slaves in criminal enterprises.

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The six individuals convicted yesterday were among 23 people who were originally indicted for the smuggling scheme in 1996. The other 17 defendants all negotiated guilty pleas to various roles in the operation before the trial began.

The convictions followed a nine-week trial in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. During the trial, federal prosecutors presented testimony and witnesses who described an illegal immigrant smuggling conspiracy ranging from San Francisco and Los Angeles on the West Coast to New York and Philadelphia on the East Coast.

According to evidence presented during the trial, Luong and the others met numerous times in May 1993 to plan the smuggling scheme, frequently at an apartment Luong rented in Daly City.

They acquired two boats to use in unloading the immigrants from a "mother ship" off the Northern California coast and landing them at Moss Landing and Half Moon Bay, and planned to transport them to Los Angeles and, ultimately, New York.

When the immigrants landed in June 1993, federal agents -- who had been tipped about the operation before the ships arrived -- managed to capture most of the immigrants within a matter of hours. Only 19 made their way to New York, and all were eventually either deported or granted political asylum.

Critical testimony in the case came from two convicted New York gang members, Ronnie Yang and Peter Tsang, who described the plot in detail and ascribed to Luong a key role in the planning and execution of the scheme.

The two men also implicitly linked the smuggling operation to two East Coast organized crime operations. Yang, an acknowledged member of the notorious White Tigers, a Vietnamese-Chinese gang headquartered in Queens, acknowledged having smuggled hundreds of illegal immigrants into the United States on behalf of New York Chinese organized crime members. He also testified that he had made nearly $1 million from criminal activities during the five years he had been in the United States.

Tsang admitted being a member of another New York gang called the Broom Street Boys. He also acknowledged bribing New York police to tip him about law enforcement efforts to root out gang activities.

Both men admitted they had been convicted of murdering one of their gang associates, Kung Pang Chen.

In addition to the testimony of Yang and Tsang and two other members of the smuggling ring who had already pleaded guilty, federal prosecutors used charts to demonstrate how various members of the conspiracy had maintained contact with each other during the month before the mainland Chinese arrived.

Defense attorneys questioned Tsang and Yang closely about their involvement in a host of East Coast crimes, including murder, drug dealing and extortion. Attorneys portrayed the two men as liars whose testimony couldn't be trusted.

They also pointed to defects in the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service investigation that led to the indictment, showing how agents had failed to keep track of certain key pieces of evidence and neglected to follow what they considered to be important leads in the case.

Apparently, the jury was unconvinced.

Of the defendants, only one, Nhat Chuong, was found not guilty, and that involved a relatively minor criminal charge. The jury deadlocked on whether Van Thi Bach Nguyen had been involved in the smuggling conspiracy, but found her guilty of bringing and attempting to bring illegal immigrants into the United States.

The trial that ended yesterday was only the first skirmish in the federal government's war on Luong's alleged criminal organization. Luong and numerous associates still face trial in three additional federal criminal cases, including:

-- An indictment in San Francisco alleging the group's involvement in a heroin-trafficking scheme that reached from San Francisco to New York.

-- A separate San Francisco indictment that accuses Luong of organizing a series of armed microchip robberies in Oregon, Minnesota and several cities in California.

-- A Sacramento grand jury indictment that alleges Luong and close associates laundered nearly $500,000 in illegal profits through car and real estate purchases, as well as a complicated check transfer scheme.

In addition, suspects who are alleged to be members of Luong's organization are awaiting trial for a grisly torture-slaying in Stockton, as well as the random killing of a teenage girl in San Jose.

Investigators uncovered most of these crimes after Luong and the others were identified as members of the 1993 smuggling operation.